ON INTERNSHIP REPORTS OF MASTERS OF TRANSLATION AND ...

Xu, M. \2019) On internship reports of Masters of

Translation and Interpreting in China—A

mixed-methods study. Current Trends in Translation

Teaching and Learning E, 6, 29-74.

29

ON INTERNSHIP REPORTS OF MASTERS

OF TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING

IN CHINA—A MIXED-METHODS

APPROACH

Mianjun XU

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China

Abstract

Internship reports, which are based on Master of

Translation and Interpreting (MTI) students’ translation or

interpreting internships, can reveal, to some extent, the

effectiveness of internships, a compulsory component of

MTI education in China. However, scholars or MTI

students have not paid much attention to internship reports.

For this reason, this paper tries to present an overall picture

of MTI internship reports in China with a mixed-methods

approach, including bibliometric analyses and

semi-structured interviews with 10 MTI graduates. It is





30

found that the numbers of internship reports, internship

institutions and MTI institutions involved are all small but

the internship experiences turn out to be positively received

by MTI students. It is hoped that this study can draw more

scholarly and professional attention to MTI internships and

internship reports in China and beyond so as to improve the

quality of translator and interpreter training.

Keywords: MTI education, internship reports, bibliometric

approach, mixed-methods approach

1. INTRODUCTION

In China, professional translator and interpreter

education formally started when the Bachelor of

Translation and Interpreting (BTI) program was

approved in 2006 and Master of Translation and

Interpreting (MTI) in 2007. As of 2019,

universities and colleges offering BTI and MTI

programs (for convenience’s sake, hereinafter

they will be referred to as “BTI/MTI institutions”)

have amounted to 281 and 253 respectively, with

a total enrollment of about 65,000 students and

over 40,000 graduates.





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As a professional degree, MTI is

practice-oriented, emphasizing students’

professional competences as translators and/or

interpreters rather than their research competence.

Therefore, the teaching objectives, training

modes, syllabi, teaching contents, practicums and

internships are all different from the Master of

Arts in Translation Studies.

To highlight its professional and practical nature,

MTI education makes establishment of

professional internship bases and student

internships compulsory. The Guiding Plan for the

Master of Translation and Interpreting Program

(China National Committee for MTI Education,

2011) stipulates that professional internship is a

compulsory component of MTI education and

should last no shorter than one semester. MTI

institutions should, according to their training

objectives, organize their students to have

internships in qualified governmental

departments, enterprises and public institutions,

designate supervisors, and guarantee that students

acquire standard and effective training and

practice and improve their translation and/or

interpreting skills and professionalism; upon





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completion of their internship, students should

present the appraisal reports by the internship

institutions to the school authorities; and

internships cannot be replaced by other credit

courses. The Assessment Criteria for MTI

Institutions also lays down specific requirements

concerning internship bases and students’

internships, namely, internship bases 1) should

have been legally registered or established, have

been engaged in translation, interpreting and

related businesses for 5 years or more and enjoy

good social reputation; 2) should have no fewer

than 30 fulltime translators and a fixed office area

of no less than 200m2; 3) should have no fewer

than 15 fulltime translators of intermediate or

above professional rank; 4) can provide interns

with necessary working conditions which include

computers, reference books and Computer

Assisted Translation (CAT) software; 5) each

MTI institution should have at least one

internship base that can provide students with

relatively stable translation practice opportunities;

6) each student should work in internship bases

for at least one semester; 7) internship bases

should provide interns with experienced

professionals with intermediate or above





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professional rank as professional mentors and

have assessment systems for interns; and 8) upon

completion of internship, the internship bases

should present internship certificates and

appraisal reports to the MTI institutions

concerned (unpublished assessment criteria).

Because of the importance of internships and

internship bases in MTI education, this paper

tries to delve deep into this specific field by

looking at the internship reports of MTI students

and by interviewing 10 MTI graduates. The

remaining parts of this paper are arranged as

follows: Part Two is literature review; Part Three;

methodology; Part Four, results; Part Five,

discussions, and Part Six, conclusion.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definitions of intern and internship

It is essential to clarify “intern” and “internship”

before going into more detailed discussions of the

topic. Intern can serve as a noun and a verb and

can be used specifically to refer to medical

students or other types of students. This paper





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only focuses on definitions related to the ongoing

topics.

Intern: “someone, especially a student, who

works for a short time in a particular job in order

to gain experience” (Longman Dictionary of

Contemporary English online); “a student, or

someone who has recently finished their studies,

who works for a company or organization for a

short time, sometimes without being paid, in

order to get experience of a particular type of

work” (Cambridge Dictionary online).

Internship: “a job that lasts for a short time,

especially a student, does in order to gain

experience (Longman Dictionary of

Contemporary English online); “a period of time

during which a student works for a company or

organization in order to get experience of a

particular type of work” (Cambridge Dictionary

online).

Ren defines MTI interpreting internship as: a

training phase after students have basically

completed the study of related theoretical and

practical courses, a phase during which students





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demonstrate, apply and testify related interpreting

knowledge and skills in real or highly simulated

interpreting work environment to train and

improve their working ability, enhance their

interpreting (translation) professional awareness,

cultivate their professional habits and raise their

employability (2012, p.47).

From the above definitions, intern in this paper

refers to any MTI student who works for a certain

period of time in a company or organization

before graduation with the main purpose of

training and gaining experience; internship refers

to the period or the state when MTI students

serve as interns.

2.2 Practical components of MTI education

Apart from on-campus classroom instructions,

internships and graduation theses writing are two

important components of MTI education, both of

which emphasize students’ practical experience

and understanding of the language service

market.

Internship is considered indispensable to MTI





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education because it is believed that internship

allows students to put what they have learned in

classroom instructions into practice, to learn the

whole process of translation and interpreting

projects, to acquire language service provision

competence and the various skills and knowledge

needed in the translation and interpreting process,

for example, teamwork spirit, interpersonal skills,

the use of various Machine Translation (MT) and

CAT software, the ability to work under pressure,

and the ability of marketing and advertising (Ren,

2012).

Another practical component of MTI education is

graduation thesis writing. MTI students can

choose different forms of graduation theses apart

from academic papers, for example, translation or

interpreting practice reports, internship reports,

survey reports, or experiment reports (Huang,

2012; Mu, 2011, Mu & Zou, 2011; Mu et al.,

2012; Ping, 2018). Among the five different

forms, practice report is the most popular, with

nearly 10,000 in total over the years. By

comparison, the other three practice-oriented

reports are less popular, each with fewer than 100

papers from the CNKI Database of Postgraduate





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Graduation Theses.

Though scholars have emphasized the importance

of MTI graduation theses (for example, Mu, 2011;

Ping, 2018), few have analyzed MTI students’

graduation theses, much less internship reports.

Compared with other types of reports, internship

reports are more closely related to the translation

and language service industry in that students

actually work in real world environment for a

certain period of time and deal with authentic

translation/interpreting projects and clients. What

they have encountered during their internships

will have direct impacts on their future careers

and have wash-back effects on MTI education.

2.3 Importance of translation and

interpreting internships

Internships or work placements in general have

multifaceted benefits, which include gaining

practical experience (Szambowski et al., 2002);

integrating on-campus and off-campus learning

(Flanagan et al., 2000); improving their

profession-specific skills (Scholz et al., 2014);

strengthening their communication, interpersonal





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and networking skills (Busby, 2003; Clark, 2003;

Scholz et al., 2004; Thiel & Hartley, 1997);

developing their attitudes towards lifelong and

autonomous learning (Chapman & Howkins,

2003); better preparing them for future careers

(Gordon, 1996; Sharma, 2006) or easing the

transition from graduates to employees (Billet,

2009); earning job satisfaction unobtainable at

school (Shoenfelt et al., 2013); and enhancing

their employability (Salas-Velesco, 2007). If the

internship takes place in a foreign country, interns

can also acquire cultural competence as well (He

& Qin, 2017; Wu, 2017).

In the same vein, translation and interpreting

internship has distinctive benefits to translation

and interpreting students. As a form of situated

learning, it can help students achieve the best

learning effects (Kiraly, 2016; Prieto-Velasco &

Feuentes-Luque, 2016). “Just as the best way to

learn swimming is to swim, so the best way to

learn all the ramifications of the translation

process is to work on a translation project” (Lin,

2005, p. 181). More specifically, scholars have

elaborated on the following.





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First, internship provides students the opportunity

to test and hone skills acquired in classroom

instructions, for example, autonomous learning,

ability to work under pressure, teamwork spirit,

confidence, and freedom from anxiety (Johnston,

2007; Lesch, 2011; Valero-Garcés, 2010, 2011)

and to offset the drawbacks of classroom

instructions (Li, 2015).

Second, internship enables students to engage

with the language service profession, which

requires them to have knowledge of translation

project management, technical writing,

proofreading, brand globalization and

localization, and multilingual communication, all

of which cannot be acquired or acquired in full in

classroom instructions (Hu, 2018, p.213). It

makes students know what skills they need to be

equipped with to fit in the translation and

language service market (Aly, 2015). Internship

also enables students to acquire more practical

and extensive experience about the translation

workflow and improve their strategic and

technological competence accordingly (Zhu,

2018).





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Third, internship is an experimental field of

professional translation teaching and research. It

is the most direct feedback source of the

translation industry and the pivot of integration of

production, learning and research (Liu, 2017;

Yang, et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2011). Moreover,

internship enables students to accumulate large

quantities of authentic translation materials and

rich fruits for reflection, which serve as excellent

data for students’ graduation thesis writing (Li,

2012). It also offers teachers justifications to

modify the curricula (Li, 2018).

Fourth, internship eases the transition from

graduates to employees by familiarizing the

interns with the work procedures, and by

enhancing their various professional competences

required by the market (Johnston, 2007; Valero

Garcés, 2010, 2011) and thus increasing their

employability after graduation.

In short, the importance and benefits of

internship to translation and interpreting students

are apparent as it enables them to learn in real

world situations in which students can learn to

construct their own knowledge. However,





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internship is still under-studied in translation

studies (Liu, 2017, p.581).

2.4 Translation and interpreting internship

reports

Only a handful of Chinese scholars have

discussed translation and interpreting internship

reports in the past decade or so. Mu (2011), Mu

and Zou (2011), and Mu et al. (2012) suggest

changing the original three forms of MTI theses,

namely, translation project, experiment report and

research paper suggested in the Guiding Plan of

MTI Education into five forms, namely,

important post internship report, translation or

interpreting practice report, translation or

interpreting experiment report, and translation

survey report. Liu and Wen (2016) analyze the

topics and writing features of 831 MTI theses

from 12 MTI institutions and find that most of

these papers are plagued with problems, for

example, monotonous thesis types, similar

content and inappropriate selection of source

texts. Liu and Wen reveal that except one

university which skews toward research papers,

all the others are practice-oriented with





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translation practice reports taking up 78.94% of

the surveyed sample while the other forms,

namely, internship reports, experiment reports

and survey reports are negligible. In terms of

internship reports, Liu and Wen offer the

following suggestions: to include related content

of internship in translation or interpreting

industry, for example, descriptive analysis of the

translation process; to describe the whole process

of a translation or interpreting project from the

initiator, commissioner, source text producer,

target text producer, target text users to target text

receivers and further analyze related experience

and setbacks; in addition, to analyze certain links

in detail, for example, the revision process, or

even the translator’s self-revision; and

furthermore, to carry out descriptive analysis of

problems in the translation management and the

application of translation tools in the translation

process (Liu & Wen, 2016, p.111).

Ping, in his discussion of the design and writing

of MTI theses, suggests that MTI students take

part in translation internships under the guidance

of their academic supervisors, paying special

attention to internships as project translators,





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project revisers and project managers in language

service industry and write internship reports of no

fewer than 15,000 foreign language words

(including case analyses). The project translator

internship report can include background

introduction to the translation task, needs

analyses, time management, tool use, and

translation quality control, with special focus on

problems encountered in the translation process,

measures taken and experience acquired. Project

reviser internship report can include quality

standards of the project, time management, tool

use, quality control, and quality assessment.

Project manager internship report can include

project introduction, project plan, project

implementation evaluation, technology

application summary, teamwork assessment, and

user feedback. Internship reports are required to

have accurate and fluent expressions, solid

theoretical foundations, and in-depth case

analyses; and offer effective suggestions to solve

problems popping up during the internship (Ping,

2018, p.46).

Of course, not all scholars hold positive opinions

on internship report as a valid form of MTI theses.





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For example, Wu (2013) argues that since

internship is part of the curricula, internship

report should be regarded as part of the internship

rather than a form of graduation theses. Zhu

(2019) argues that students’ internships usually

take place off-campus and it is inconvenient for

academic supervisors to get involved. In addition,

as internship is part of the MTI curricula,

appraisal by internship institutions can only serve

as scores of the internship rather than as

assessment of graduation theses. Moreover, the

15,000 words internship report just describes the

process of the internship, namely, recording the

procedures and links during the internship so it is

hard to find out the writers’ mastery of theories

and systematic knowledge or their competence to

undertake translation and interpreting tasks

independently (Zhu, 2019, p.84). Zhu’s

comments reveal some problems with the

internships and internship reports, which require

deeper and more comprehensive studies of them

and further reforms of the contents of the

internship reports.

The brief review of related literature reveals that

despite the importance of internships and





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internship reports, they are still under-researched

and largely neglected, hence, the need for the

current study.

2.5 Research questions

This paper tries to answer the following research

questions:

(1) What is the status quo of MTI internships

and internship reports?

(2) What are the possible reasons for the status

quo?

(3) What are the merits and demerits of MTI

internships and internship reports?

(4) What suggestions can be offered to improve

the effectiveness of internships and

internship reports?

3. METHODOLOGY

This study adopts a mixed-methods approach,

involving both bibliometric analyses and

semi-structured interviews of 10 MTI students

from 9 different MTI universities so as to verify

and triangulate results obtained from bibliometric

analyses.





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3.1 Bibliometric analyses

In China, all Master’s and Doctoral dissertations

should be submitted to Postgraduate Dissertation

Database on China National Knowledge

Infrastructure (CNKI), the biggest, and the most

comprehensive and authoritative database.

The author adopts the following steps. First,

select Postgraduate Dissertation Database on

CNKI. Second, use different combinations to

locate the papers for analysis. Different

combinations of search items come up with

different numbers of returns, so close reading is

needed. Third, go through the titles and abstracts

of the selected papers to tease out repeated or

irrelevant ones. A total of 99 papers are identified

as internship reports (accessed July 23rd, 2019).

Fourth, go through each paper carefully to get

information about the university concerned,

language pair, type of internship institutions,

students’ roles during internships, topics

discussed, and their comments on internships.

Table 1 Different Boolean searches used





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(Note: as the searches were conducted in Chinese, their English

translations are provided in parentheses for reference.)

3.2 Semi-structured interviews

Table 2 Profile of 10 MTI Graduates

Name G Type of uni. Type of

internship

institution

Dura-

tion

Duties G

C

Search items Theme

+theme

Theme

+title

Title

+theme

Title

+title

实习+翻译 (internship +

translation）

141 69 106 55

实习+笔译 (internship +

written translation)

18 7 10 7

实习+口译 (internship +

interpreting)

68 44 55 41

实习报告 + 翻译

(internship report +

translation)

80 36 75 33

实习报告 + 笔译


written translation)

9 6 7 6

实习报告 + 口译


interpreting)

50 38 45 36





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1 Cai F Foreign

languages

Municipal

FAO

3m OW

&TP

P

2 Chen F Foreign

languages

Uni.

translation

company

1y T &

QC

P

3 Dai F Teacher

training

Publishing

house

3m T & R P

4 Fan F agriculture Agriculture

bureau

1m T & I P

5 Ge M technology SOE 2m LI P

6 Hao M Compre-

hensive

New energy

company

2m I P

7 Jin F Compre-

hensive

Travel

agency

1m T & I P

8 Kang F TCM Research

institute

3m T P

9 Lin M Petro-

chemical

Translation

company

1m T N

G

10 Ma F finance News

agency

2m T N

T

(Note: symbols used in Table 2: FAO: foreign affairs office; G: gender;

GCs: general comments; I: interpreting; LI: liaison interpreting; NG:

negative; NT: neutral; OW: office work; P: positive; R: revision; QC:

quality control; SOE: state-owned enterprise; T: translation; TP:

translation projects)





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To testify the findings from the bibliometric

analyses, the author has also interviewed 10 MTI

graduates from 9 MTI universities who were

interviewed on a voluntary basis. The profile of

the interviewees is shown in Table 2.

Pseudonyms are used to protect their privacy.

The interviewees were asked to provide the type

of their university, the type of internship

institution, length of their internship, major

responsibilities involved, their general comments

on internship, and reasons for being positive,

neutral or negative. They were also asked to offer

their understanding of internship reports.

4. RESULTS

This part first presents the quantitative results of

the 99 internship reports, including distribution of

papers by MTI institution, by year and by

language pair; types of internship institutions,

major responsibilities undertaken by students and

major topics discussed. Then it tries to offer the

opinions of the interviewees.





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4.1 Distribution of internship reports

The 99 internship reports come from 25 MTI

institutions, but the numbers of papers vary

greatly from university to university. On top of

the list is Guangdong University of Foreign

Studies, one of the earliest and best MTI

institutions in China, with 21 papers (21.2%),

followed by Shanghai International Studies

University, with 12 papers (12.1%). All the other

23 universities have just one-digit number of

internship papers, among which 11 universities

have just one respectively (See Table 3 for

details).

The number of internship reports fluctuates from

year to year. In 2011 when the first batch of MTI

students graduated, there were only 3 such

reports, then the number rose to 6 in 2012 and 18

in 2013, but dropped to 9 in 2014 and 2015

respectively before rising again to 11 in 2016, 22

in 2017, and 21 in 2018 (See Figure 1).

Table 3 Distribution of internship papers by MTI universities

University total %





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1 Guangdong University of Foreign Studies 21 21.2

2 Shanghai International Studies University 12 12.1

3 Ningxia University 7 7.1

4 Sichuan International Studies University 7 7.1

5 Hebei Normal University 6 6.1

6 North China Electric Power University 6 6.1

7 Inner Mongolia Normal University 5 5.1

8 Yantai University 5 5.1

9 Beijing Foreign Studies University 5 5.1

10 Jilin University 3 3.0

11 Guangxi University 3 3.0

12 Jilin International Studies University 3 3.0

13 Shaanxi Normal University 3 3.0

14 Guangxi University for Nationalities 2 2..2

15-

25

Central South University ; China Foreign

Affairs University ; Dalian University of

Technology; Dalian Maritime University;

Heilongjiang University; Henan Normal

University; Inner Mongolia University;

Liaoning University; Qingdao University

of Science and Technology; University of

Science and Technology of China; Yunnan

Minzu University

1 each

11 in total

11.1

Total 99 100





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Figure 1 Distribution of internship reports by year

Though MTI programs are offered in nine

languages, including English, German, French,

Russian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Thai, and

Arabian, the majority of internship reports

concern the language pair of Chinese and English

(see Table 4 for details).

Table 4: Distribution of internship reports by language pair

C-E C-J C-R C-G C-F total

87 4 4 3 1 99

(Note：C: Chinese; E: English; J: Japanese; R: Russian; G: German: F:

French)

4.2 Types of internship institutions

LSCs and governmental institutions account for

about 20% of the internship institutions

respectively. LSCs whose main businesses are





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still traditional translation and interpreting

(Translators Association of China, 2018) are the

most relevant internship institutions for MTI

students. In LSCs, most interns report being

involved in translation and/or interpreting

projects. The governmental institutions

mentioned are of various types, including foreign

affairs offices, governmental departments and

bureaus and research institutes.

Table 5 Types of internship institutions

Institutions No Institutions No

Language service companies

(LSCs)

20 News agencies/

media websites

5

Governmental institutions 20 Foreign aid agencies 5

Various enterprises 18 Foreign enterprises 4

Universities 12 Publishing houses 2

The United Nations 11 Not mentioned 3

Total:100 (one student interning in two institutions)

Some universities also offer internship

opportunities for their own students, for example,

university-run museums, academic journals,

research centers, and student translation

companies. Students from some prestigious





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foreign languages universities, for example,

Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai

International Studies University and Guangdong

University of Foreign Studies even have the

chances of working in the UN, e.g., the Verbatim

Reporting Services, the Food and Agriculture

Organization, the UPR of Human Rights Council,

the Department of Public Information, the

Chinese Translation Service and the Headquarters

in Geneva.

A small number of students also work in other

types of institutions, for example, news agencies,

online media, foreign aid agencies, foreign

enterprises, and publishing houses. Three reports

bear no information about the name or nature of

the internship institutions.

4.3 Interns’ responsibilities

The interns’ job responsibilities mainly include

translation, interpreting or both and involve a

wide range of fields and businesses. Fifty-eight

students reported doing translation tasks,

thirty-eight interpreting, and three both

translation and interpreting. They also work in





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various fields and businesses, for example,

foreign affairs, foreign trade, legal affairs of

international or national organizations or

governmental departments, company

prospectuses, art design competitions, social

sciences, airport construction, manufacturing,

coal-fired power plants, tourism, news,

technology foreign aid, investment, museums,

sport technology assistance, and new energy.

4.4 Foci of internship reports

According to whether any specific issues are

discussed, the internship reports can be roughly

classified into two types, those with special focus

and those without. Sixty-eight (68.7%) internship

reports just describe the process of internship

without any special focus, while the remaining 31

have focused on diverse issues (see Table 6).

Table 6 Foci of internship reports

foci No

None 68

Quality control 5

Terminology management 3





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UN document related issues 3

CAT related issues 3

Translation Memory related issues 3

Characteristics and translation of social sciences texts 1

Interpretation and E-C translation of contractual legal texts 1

E-C Translation methods of product introductions 1

Professional adaptability of MTI talents 1

Importance of pre-task preparation for simultaneous interpreting 1

Misunderstanding and its avoidance in interpreting 1

Flowchart of interpreting project management 1

Influences of external factors on interpreting effects 1

Importance of teamwork 1

Interpreter role in foreign-related military interpreting 1

Difficulties in liaison interpreting and solutions 1

Situational adaptation 1

Use of internet resources 1

Application of PMI (Project Management Institute) Methodology

in translation project

1

total 99

4.5 Interviewees’ voices on internships and

internship reports

On the whole, the majority of the 10 interviewed





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MTI graduates have positive views on their

internship experiences. They maintain that

working in real world environment offered them

a brand new experience. First of all, the

translation tasks are so different from those

assigned by their teachers. More importantly,

they had to handle so many different things apart

from the translation and/or interpreting per se.

During the process, they learned how to work

under time pressure, communicate with clients,

cooperate with colleagues, follow instructions,

manage resources, and even cope with office

politics. Though tiring, the experience is well

worth it.

Cai, who once worked as an intern in a municipal

foreign affairs office was grateful that she had the

precious chance to work with professional

translators and interpreters.

I was quite nervous on the first day of

my internship, because I knew that the

work at foreign affairs office is quite

demanding and I was afraid of making

mistakes and being criticized. But the

people there were all very nice to me and





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willing to help me. During my one-year

stay there, I learned a lot, not just how to

translate or interpret, but how to work

with colleagues, how to work under

pressure and how to meet deadlines. I am

grateful for my internship experience.

The other seven interviewees who were positive

to their internship experience expressed similar

ideas as Cai’s. However, Ma, who worked as an

intern in a news agency for 2 months and was

mainly engaged in financial news translation, had

mixed feelings of her internship.

It is true that internship can put what you

have learned at school into practice and

my two months internship at the news

agency was more helpful to me than

one-year on-campus training because I

had a lot chances to translate financial

news reports. But frankly speaking, I

don’t like working at news agencies,

because I often had to work at irregular

hours, especially when there was some

important news to translate. It was really

stressful to me but that seemed to be the





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routine.

Another interviewee, Lin, clearly stated his

disappointments at his internship experience in a

translation company.

That experience made me decide not to

become a fulltime professional translator

after graduation. The company just

treated its employees as money-making

machines. Everyone was so busy with

their translation tasks that there was

little chance of communicating with or

learning from the professional

translators or other colleagues. As it was

a relatively small company, there were

few large-scale translation projects. I

don’t think I gained much from the

internship. It was because of my

internship experience, I decided not to be

a professional translator.

All of the 10 interviewees acknowledge that the

internship experience made them have better

understanding of themselves and realize what jobs

were more suitable to them.





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When asked why so few MTI students had chosen

internship reports as their theses, the interviewees

informed that few of their fellow students had

full-length internships required by the relevant

regulations or the chances to engage in translation

or interpreting projects. It was usually those top

students who got recommended to work in

internship bases established by their respective

universities and the majority of students had to find

their own internship opportunities.

5. DISCUSSIONS

As discussed in 2.3 above, internship, as a form

of experiential or situated learning, is one of the

best ways for translation and interpreting students

to acquire their professional competences (Kiraly,

2016; Prieto-Velasco & Feuentes-Luque, 2016)

because they had the chances to work in real

situations, handle real translation and/or

interpreting tasks and projects and work with

different people which cannot be provided by

classroom instructions. However, the small

number of internship reports has revealed, to

some extent, that internships have not yet played





61

their expected roles in MTI education in China

and greater efforts are needed to improve their

effectiveness. Based on the interviews, and

scholarly literature, the following discussions

focus on reasons for the status quo of internship

reports, merits and demerits of internships and

internship reports, and suggestions for improving

them.

5.1 Reasons for the status quo of internship

reports

Internship reports remain a minority among the

different forms of MTI theses. Though there are

over 30,000 MTI graduates, only about 100 have

chosen internship reports as their graduation

theses. There are some possible reasons behind

this phenomenon.

First, the small number and limited absorptive

capacity of internship bases of each MTI

institution cannot satisfy the internship demand

of all MTI students. Though most MTI

institutions claim to have some or even dozens of

internship bases, only a small number of students

can have authentic and full-length internships and





62

the situation is much worse in economically less

advanced regions. Instead of having authentic

internships, some students can only make do with

simulated practices.

Second, despite the importance of internships to

MTI students, not all translation/

interpreting-related institutions are willing to take

interns in that they will have to spare extra

human resources to train the students, and worse

still, few interns actually become their fulltime

employees after graduation. That means they

have to waste their time and energy for

something meaningless to them, or even if they

take interns, some institutions will not entrust

them with important tasks. That’s why some of

the interviewees complained about not being able

to learn the whole processes of translation

projects.

Third, some academic supervisors still have

strong bias against practice-based reports as

forms of theses in that they consider them not

academic enough. As one interviewee Dai says,

“I know that MTI is a practice-oriented program

and practice-based reports are more pertinent, but





63

my supervisor insisted that I write an academic

paper. I had no choice but to follow his

instructions.”

In short, the small number of internship reports

results from the relative few internship

opportunities offered and from the negative

opinions of the academic supervisors.

5.2 Merits and demerits of internships and

internship reports

Despite the small proportion of internship reports

among all MTI theses, the analyses above still

enable us to have a glimpse of some merits and

demerits of internships and internship reports. On

the one hand, the vast fields and businesses of

internships reveal that MTI institutions are

working hard to train advanced, practical and

professional translators and interpreters for

specific industries so that their students can not

only translate or interpret for general purposes

but also for more specialized, technical and

demanding tasks, for example, the UN

documents, legal documents, power plants, new

energy and information technology. Apart from





64

translation and interpreting per se, the interns

also have chances for project management,

quality control and translation software

development. In addition, the internship reports

help policy makers, MTI authorities and teachers

to know better what is expected of their students

and how they can modify their curricula

accordingly so as to achieve the best teaching

effects (Li, 2018).

On the other hand, the internship reports have

also exposed some problems with MTI education,

including, insufficient number of internship bases

to satisfy students’ demands; lack of importance

attached to internships and internship bases by

MTI institutions, LSCs and other institutions

concerned; and the lack of foci of internship

reports as nearly 70% of them just record the

internship process with little or no focus at all.

5.3 Suggestions for improving internships and

internship reports

In order to enable internships and internship

reports to play more constructive roles in MTI

education, the following suggestions are offered:





65

First, governmental and educational authorities

should encourage institutions with absorptive

capacity to take more interns to enable more

students to have situated learning and to better

prepare themselves professionally. At the same

time, the authorities concerned should provide

internship institutions with some incentives, for

example, tax reduction, government subsidies,

further training opportunities for their employees,

or even some honorary titles. One such measure

is the new apprenticeship system practiced in

China since 2018, namely, institutions which take

interns get subsidies from the government.

Second, MTI institutions should seek to establish

more extensive and substantial cooperation

relationships with relevant institutions and

businesses on the basis of reciprocity and

complementarity. In other words, MTI

institutions should offer the internship bases

something in return, for example, training,

translation, interpreting, other services, or even

money for their contributions in MTI education.

The cooperation between Fujian Normal

University and YGYM Translation Service Co.





66

Ltd. is a good example (Yue et al., 2018).

Third, MTI institutions can establish LSCs that

have authentic or simulated corporate operations

so that more students can have internship

opportunities to better prepare themselves

professionally. Some MTI institutions, for

example, Guangdong University of Foreign

Studies and Shanghai International Studies

University, have set successful examples for

fellow institutions in this respect.

Fourth, closer cooperation between academic and

professional supervisors is needed so that

students can be given more guidance in their

internships and the subsequent writing process to

achieve better professional and academic

performance. Internship as an important form to

improve students’ employability should be

further advocated to gain more support from both

types of supervisors. In addition, academic

supervisors should shoulder more responsibilities

concerning the writing of internship reports. In

order for such reports to inform and reform

teaching, more specific requirements should be

laid down for the specific format and contents.





67

Apart from describing the process of internships,

student writers should also identify

translation/interpreting issues, discuss how to

solve them with relevant translation/interpreting

theories, and offer concrete suggestions for

solving them. Such requirements can add more

research and academic endeavor to the internship

reports so that they are not just informational, as

criticized by Zhu (2019).

6. CONCLUSION

With a mixed-methods approach involving

bibliometric analyses and semi-structured

interviews, this study tries to present an overall

picture of MTI internship reports, one of the

major forms of MTI theses in China. On top of

that, it analyzes the possible reasons for the status

quo, the advantages and problems of internships

and internship bases, and offers suggestions for

improving their effectiveness in MTI education.

The combined search items and close reading of

all reports have allowed little possibility of

misrepresentation, so the findings can serve as

reference for future decision-making, teaching

reform and renewal by education authorities,





68

MTI institutions and teachers concerned.

This study is mainly bibliometric supplemented

with semi-structured interviews. The sample size

of the interviewees is small compared with the

large student body, so some more implicit

opinions concerning the internship and internship

reports cannot be full manifested. In order to

have a more comprehensive view of internships

and internship reports, large-scale questionnaire

surveys of and more extensive interviews with

MTI students, academic and professional

supervisors, authorities of internship bases and

MTI institutions as well as other stakeholders are

necessary in the future.

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